Australia’s sharemarket has closed at its highest since the global financial crisis, despite the second-biggest company on the ASX, BHP Billiton, posting its biggest fall in five months.

Investors rushed to sell BHP, with the dual-listed miner losing about $8 billion of its market cap spread across Australia and the UK.

BHP lost $1.55, or 3.9 per cent, to close at $38.13. The broader market meanwhile finished at its highest since June 2008, with the S&P/ASX 200 Index firming 10.8 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 5634.6 points.

The BHP selloff mirrored a steep fall in London, as investors reacted negatively to a controversial $14 billion demerger plan and the lack of a mooted $3 billion buyback.

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Ord Minnett senior investment adviser Tony Paterno said investors had snapped up BHP last week on the expectation that the company would launch a share buyback or some other capital management strategy.

“They bought on a rumour and sold on a fact,” Mr Paterno said after the hopes of investors failed to eventuate.

“This is second time around that they haven’t delivered in terms of capital management.”

But Macquarie Private Wealth director Martin Lakos said the absence of a buyback was prudent.

“They clearly don’t feel their balance sheet is quite in a position yet to put in place significant capital management responses at the moment … and that’s a sensible thing,” Mr Lakos said.

It was nearly the exact opposite for the company that helped keep the market in positive territory - conglomerate Wesfarmers. The company added 7.7 index points to the ASX, rising 3.8 per cent to $45.66.

Patersons Securities strategist Tony Farnham said investors were attracted to Wesfarmers’ solid earnings growth at Coles, Bunnings and Officeworks, which would put “more money in their pocket”.

“They announced a capital management plan that will deliver a return of $1 a share in addition to a final dividend,” Mr Farnham said. The distribution is from Wesfarmers’ sale of its insurance operations earlier this year for $3 billion, and is subject to approval from the Australian Tax Office and shareholders at its annual meeting later this year.

Elsewhere, Coca-Cola Amatil plunged 2 per cent to $9.54 after it reported a 16 per cent fall in first-half net profit and warned that its full-year profit would be “materially lower” than last year.

“We have not been that positive on Coke for a while,” Mr Lakos said.

“It’s a pretty mature business so it’s going to take a while for it to really turn around.”

Fortescue Metals Group eased 1.5 per cent to $4.55. Despite delivering a profit of $US2.74 billion, which is 56 per cent higher than last year, it was slightly lower than analysts' expectations.

The big four banks all finished in the black. ANZ rose 1.4 per cent to $33.27, while CBA firmed 0.4 per cent to $80.30. NAB and Westpac gained 0.9 and 0.3 per cent to $34.24 and $34.88, respectively.

“The banks are still implying earnings growth of about 9 per cent across the sector going into their own reporting season at the end of September,” Mr Lakos said.